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The Tax on Aspiration

by Anna Raccoon on February 11, 2013

Time was, when the NHS was but a twinkle in Bevan’s eye, old age was seen as a personal achievement.

A tribute to man’s ability to overcome capricious nature. The old had sidestepped the mortality rates of infantile disease, dodged the bullets of war, quickstepped through a working life of gruesome dangers unimaginable in today’s world of health and safety, and emerged as wrinkled, gnarled and toothless seers, ever present in the family home to reassure the next generation that they too might reach that esteemed state of being able to say and do as you please, waited on by the young, cherished and preserved as totems to warn nature that it could not always expect to win. The good luck talisman seated in the best armchair closest to the fire.

The NHS has transformed our view of the aged. Old age is now accredited as the result of advanced medical science, something accidentally doled out in the name of equality, by technicians researching ways of keeping us younger, fitter, more beautiful – for ever. It is collateral damage in the war against disease and imperfection. An unfortunate by-product of the modern age. More than that, an unwelcome reminder that despite all the research grants, we still face a future that is not as taut, as shapely, as enticing, as wholesome and desirable as we have been promised – and we do not wish to be reminded. Seeing the elderly is as much a shock to our collective conscience as seeing a broken down Rolls Royce by the side of the road. We want them under a tarpaulin, discretely removed under cover of darkness, taken somewhere on the edge of town, tended by we care not, but out of our sight.

We treat the near dead as we once treated the entirely dead – an unfortunate example of failure, to be shrouded like Victorian table legs, lest they shock the young. It is no surprise that we expect the NHS to take care of its own failures. It is, after all, they who have stolen ownership of the achievement of old age. We expect them to dispose of our half formed fœtuses, remove our ill-advised tattoo, or indeed, our penis, if such should take our fancy; they are the universal dustmen of our delusion that life is Utopian, ours to command. In the process the elderly have become the lepers of modern society.

We no longer bury the elderly with their lifetime’s possessions for their exclusive use in the next world; we don’t believe in a ‘next world’, we don’t even believe that they should have exclusive use of their possessions in ‘this world’. ‘Their possessions’ have been transformed into ‘our inheritance’, and we are not prepared to wait for death to be the arbiter of the totality of ‘our inheritance’.

The NHS pay handsome compensation for their other failures; the less than perfect child, the unwanted child that defiantly insisted on being born, the reshaped waistline that had an unwanted bulge; why should they expect us to pay for their failure to keep us young and healthy? We demand compensation.

When they admit defeat, when they can no longer patch up the sagging folds of skin, when the pig’s heart valve comes to the end of its pig’s heart lifespan, the corrosive acids will no longer dissolve the age spots, the plastic hip refuses to bend to hip hop dancing, they try to return Grandma to us. An terrifying reminder of their incompetence. A cantankerous old lady who thinks Tuesday is Wednesday and can’t remember to pull her knickers up, so we rebel, and demand that she be ‘buried’ in a discrete elder camp, to spend her days half listening to Jeremy Kyle, sitting in a circle with the other NHS failures, trying to remember what it was like being a human being. Toiletted, if she is lucky, at prescribed times. Denuded of her fags and that tot of whiskey. Clad in the clothing of long departed residents. Fed on a budget more proscriptive than any eaked out pension.

We recoil with horror at the idea that she might take some of her possessions with her. What? Sell her house, the one whose value we have been checking on Zoopla week in, week out; the house we had planned to sell to pay for our basement swimming pool and multi media room; the house that was going to buy us a life of ease and early retirement in the Dordogne? The NHS want her to sell the house she is no longer living in and use some of the money to feed and care for their failure to keep her young and spritely?

Outrageous! This is a tax on aspiration. An insult to materialistic families everywhere. Only the Tories could come up with such a heartless proposal.

Ad nauseum, ad nauseum.

{9 comments }

Mizz MildredFebruary 12, 2013 at 10:27

Recently we were treated to the terrifying story of the old lady of 86, a stroke victim, looked after by a ‘care company’, allegedly employing immigrants of the ‘not wanted sort’. Not wanted? Payed carers? In her own home? Along came the immigration persons. Closed the company office. Some criminally careless person/s forgot to provide said old lady with care or check up on her for many days. She perished. I have had a taste in the last year or so what it’s like to be old diddler abandoned in a wheel chair…..no was one to push it…..and constantly losing my place at a fracture clinic ghrrrr…..I complained using the internet…..next time I was pushed 3 times by staff, who had said they were NOT allowed to push wheelchairs. The NHS has a strange gift of making one extremely angry and giving you suberb treatment at the same time. The icing on the cake is good quality care from ones own dear relatives or friends, or in a rest/nursing home or hospital. I realise how quickly the pope has been consumed by old age; how frail and and vulnerable. Presumably he will still have plenty of help in his last months or years of life. He will be lauded and gone over too, when he dies. As Anna says, not a lot of fun being ‘grumpy granny in the corner’. Or ‘going useless’ as a dear friend of mine dreaded; she did go very very helpless….but only spent a few days in hospital at the end. A grand child got her house but that is another story.

Traditionally it was one of the daughters who looked after the elderly and failing parent. Sometimes the parent would fail so slowly and become so elderly, that the daughter effectively gave Mum the best years of her life. This formed the plot of many an old movie and novel, with the neurotic spinster-daughter finally entering the world after a decade of responding to the *thump thump* of the walking stick upstairs, to have what were usually unpleasant adventures as some paramour fleeced her of her hard-earned inheritance.

In my experience the old folks often want to find some other way to hang on in their house and not have to *spend* the wealth they have accumulated in those bricks and mortar. They may even invite one of their progeny to come and live with them…. However, the kids are generally quite well off enough themselves, and say, “Oh no Mum. You go into that care-home and don’t worry about us – we’ve got enough money anyway. Our house is worth more than yours!”

So you’re probably right, but maybe are suggesting the wrong reasons. It’s not so much that the young folks want the money, so much as the old folks don’t want to give it to anyone but their own children, even though those children are quite happy for the money to be spent on someone else looking after what could otherwise become a burden. The younger generation probably consider it money well spent.

Friend of DogFebruary 11, 2013 at 13:57

We are selling up, downsizing and with the excess moola my wife and I will be enjoying and indulging ourselves for as long as we have the money and the energy.

The JannieFebruary 11, 2013 at 13:30

A colleague’s 68 year old mum, when told to “spend it, you’ve earned it” bought herself a motorhome; she’s now a fully qualified good-weather vagrant!

Ho HumFebruary 11, 2013 at 13:11

That Early Onset Alzwhateveritisyoucallit has some insidious effects, you know…The heroes, the villains and the innocents can easily get a bit muddled up

BudvarFebruary 11, 2013 at 12:57

It’s oft told that it’s Rags to rags in 4 generations. The first starting with nothing build up the business, the second work hard expanding it. The 3rd living a life of excess and leisure spend it all and the 4th back to nothing again.

I have never quite understood the pride in “I’m spending my childrens inheritance”. But the I equally can’t understand todays “Children” frittering away an inhertance on crap. When the wifes grandmother died, the greatgrandkids were left an inheritance of a couple of grand or so. Admittedly, a couple of grand or so doesn’t go far these days, but my kids spent their on things for the house like a new cooker etc They have something to show for it and it was things they needed.. All the others just spent theirs on holidays and new phones.

I’ve never had a new car, I’ve never borrowed money to go on 2 holidays a year, I have a few quid put by, and hope to be in a position to get my kids a paid for house each. I’ve tried to instill in them that if they have no rent/mortgage to pay, they don’t need to work all hours god sends to get by. Also if you want something, save up for it and buy it cash.

alan scottFebruary 11, 2013 at 17:38

On! On! as we used to say in the Hash House Harriers. We have always done the same as you, and we have been very proud to see our children go to Universities, and to help our grandchildren and soon great-grandchildren through their educations, being sure to keep our eventual estates just below the IHT allowances. As far as possible, no mortgae, no credit (as opposed to debit) cards and for Goodness’ sake, avoid these ghastly payday loan sharks.I often wonder whether the failure to teach basic arithmetic in primary school is responsible for the inability of so many people to understand what interest rates really mean over periods of time. Compound interest tables, anyone?

MudpluggerFebruary 11, 2013 at 11:09

An excellent summary of oft-unspoken truths.

We have developed a culture of inheritance-expectation, the preservation of which has generally become the main objective, rather than enabling the elderly to use the resources which they accumulated in life to sustain them towards its end, aided by the NHS or not. All politicians’ vote-grabbing proposals take this culture as the starting point, mainly because it plays well in the Daily Mail.

I worked out some years ago that my life is a ‘closed unit’ – I needed to amass adequate reserve resources during my productive period to cover my needs to its end. Once I’d sussed that and built the spreadsheet, I realised I could stop full-time working (at 43) and concentrate on progressively exploiting those resources, aimed at ensuring that, as close as possible, when I breathe my last (or Mrs Mudplgger, whichever is the latest), it is virtually all gone. Our life-unit is then complete, with no leftovers to cause friction. If more people operated that way, they would have a simpler analysis of life and we could get away from each generation basing its own acquisitive expectations on the gatherings of the previous one.

Your mention of Mrs M opens a can of worms that has been noticeably absent from the debate. If you’ll forgive a personal anecdote….

Some years ago, an aunt of mine opened a savings account in her own name for the benefit of her nieces and nephews as she had no children of her own. Being the sort who doesn’t trust lawyers, she left written instructions for this but no will, so when she died, the account was transferred to her husband’s name, although he had never contributed to it.

Her husband refused to acknowledge her death – with hindsight, he was already showing early signs of dementia – and left the account untouched ‘in case she wants it’. When he was subsequently taken into hospital and thence to a nursing home, the savings account was liquidated to pay the fees, there being no legal way to enforce my aunt’s wishes.

These were not affluent people; they lived in a council house and worked in the factory where they met. My aunt – who rose from the typing pool to become PA to the MD, was by far the bigger earner of the household. The fact that my uncle’s share of their joint savings has been used to provide the best care available for him is unquestionably right, but is it wrong of me to wonder whether it’s a bit harsh that his wife’s hard-earned cash should go the same way?